15 January, 2018

IP Beef Barley Vegetable Soup

I’ve been slightly obsessed with beef barley soup, since I tried some at one of my favorite lunch spots. I had thought I never liked it, thinking the barley was a weird consistency that I didn’t care for. That had been, probably, when I was much younger and didn’t really put myself out to appreciating food.

So since I wanted to try to make beef barley soup…and I happen to stumble upon an Instant Pot recipe for it…I thought it was meant to be. I didn’t think I could make a soup as good as my restaurant, but I was wrong (as told to by my hubby).

This is actually a Beef Barley Vegetable Soup that I found on the Simply Happy Foodie blog. So happy to have found it!

The prep for this is a tad bit tedious, as you must chop up onion, carrots, celery, potatoes and cabbage. But the payoff will be worth it.

Staring out, you use that handy little sauté feature on your instant pot, to sear some stew meat. Add onion, carrot and celery and cook until you pick up all the brown bits on the bottom of the pan from the meat. Add your garlic and sauté for another minute. At this point we dump all the rest of the ingredients into your pot including a can of diced tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, bay leaves, thyme (I used fresh), barley and broth (I used beef broth). The recipe calls for 3 cups of broth, but I used a little bit more, just to make sure my ingredients were covered.

I cooked in my instant pot on the stew setting for 20 minutes.

This pot is magical! The depth of flavor is crazy. I love the layered flavors of the tomatoes, potatoes and cabbage with the traditional beef and barley ingredients. It added a whole new complexity to a rustic dish. Ugh, writing this makes me want to warm up a bowl of this soup…as I’m sure (like with most soups) it’s going to be even better the next day.